Christopher Butler (1) (1940–2020)

Now enshrined in the Tate Modern, it doesn’t resemble much in the canon of modernist sculpture. It is not formally complex or expressive, or particularly engaging to look at, indeed it can soon be boring. It is easy to repeat. Lacking any features to sustain interest in itself (except perhaps to Pythagorean number mystics) it inspires us to ask questions about its context rather than its content: ‘What is the point of this?’ or ‘Why is this displayed in a museum?’ Some theory about the work has to be brought in to fill the vacuum of interest, and this is also fairly typical. It might inspire the question, ‘Is it really art, or just a pile of bricks pretending to be art?’ But this is not a question that makes much sense in the postmodern era, in which it seems to be generally accepted that it is the institution of the gallery, rather than anything else, which has made it, de facto, a ‘work of art’. The visual arts are just what museum curators show us, from Picasso to sliced -up cows, and it is up to us to keep up with the ideas surrounding these works. (p.1)